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A voice for small-market radio
Vol. 49 No. 17 | August 13 2025 www.radioworld.com
Managing Director, Content & Editor in Chief Paul J. McLane, paul.mclane@futurenet.com, 845-414-6105
Assistant Editor & SmartBrief Editor Elle Kehres, elle.kehres@futurenet.com
Content Producer Nick Langan, nicholas.langan@futurenet.com
Technical Advisors W.C. “Cris” Alexander, Thomas R. McGinley, Doug Irwin
Contributors: David Bialik, John Bisset, Edwin Bukont, James Careless, Ken Deutsch, Mark Durenberger, Charles Fitch, Donna Halper, Alan Jurison, Paul Kaminski, John Kean, Larry Langford, Mark Lapidus, Michael LeClair, Frank McCoy, Jim Peck, Mark Persons, Stephen M. Poole, James O’Neal, T. Carter Ross, John Schneider, Gregg Skall, Dan Slentz, Dennis Sloatman, Randy Stine, Tom Vernon, Jennifer Waits, Steve Walker, Chris Wygal
Production Manager Nicole Schilling
Senior Design Director Lisa McIntosh
Senior Art Editor Will Shum
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Up on the roof
Salem puts a four-tower diplexed array atop a Bay Area business building
Paul McLane Editor in Chief
Salem Media Group is working on an interesting project in San Francisco, building a four-tower AM array atop a large commercial building.
While this is not the first AM installation on a rooftop, I find it fascinating to learn about special challenges that such projects present.
This facility will serve two Class B stations: KFAX on 1100 kHz, which will run 50 kW through all four towers by day and night, and KTRB on 860, with 50 kW into one tower by day and 6 kW into all four towers by night.
The stations currently broadcast from other sites under special temporary authority. Their studios are in Fremont.
The new project, underway since 2023, actually marks a return of these stations to their previously licensed transmission site, which they departed temporarily in late 2022.
“Our landlord had sold that land to a developer,” said Senior Vice President of Engineering Scott Foster, “but as part of the deal they retained an easement for us to put the towers on the roof of the building. We also have a two-story space in the building for our transmitters.”
The new structure is a large warehouse-style building of about 200,000 square feet, with truck bays on one side.
Returning a complex AM tower array to the site is a huge undertaking.
Tight coordination was required with Dermody, the industrial real estate company that owns the site, as well as with the general contractor for the building, FCL Builders. On the RF side, Tom Jones and Herman Hurst with Carl T. Jones Corp. have done all the filings for FAA and FCC applications.
“The nice thing is the array is going back the same way it was, just 40 feet in the air,” Foster said.
Salem VP of Engineering Scott Horner is leading the project, assisted by Steve Smit, Salem’s newest project manager, and local engineer Craig Roberts.
Magnum Tower will provide four towers, each with a 12-inch face, standing 186 feet. The project is in the flight path for Hayward Executive Airport, so Salem is limited on the height. Tom Jones designed the system for the shorter towers.
“We will deploy four elevated guy anchor locations, and the balance will be anchored into the building parapet wall. We also will be installing an LED light system.”
Foster told me there have been several engineering challenges. The first was the ground system.
“We were limited by the building owner on the look of the exterior of the building, and they didn’t want to give up any square footage on the inside,” he said.
“Also, the construction was a tilt-up style of building, where sections are built on the ground and then lifted up by crane into place. We were
On the cover
Julie Koehn in the air studio at 96.5 The Cave, WLEN-HD2. See page 5.
able to install ground cables in the walls before the concrete was poured. Pigtails were left on either end of the wall so that we could connect a 4-inch strap to them later to extend the radials out in the ground to the edge of the property.”
He said the towers themselves create a unique load on a building. All loads had to be calculated and passed to the building design team; they would revise their standard drawings to accommodate the additional load of the towers and guy wire system.
“Finally, there is the grounding design on the roof. The normal radial system would not provide ample protection from equipment interference, according to the models,” he said.
“The array is going back the same way it was, just 40 feet in the air.
”
“We will be laying out normal screen for 20 feet around each tower, then increasing that to 18-inch squares for the next 20 feet around each tower. Finally, the rest of the roof will be covered in 3-foot squares of normal radial wires that will then be tied into the strap around the edge of the roof.”
At the base of each tower is an elevated platform that will contain the ATU cabinet for each station, the filter cabinet to reject the other station from the RF chain, and the combining cabinet to get the two signals on a single run of copper to the tower. In the transmitter rooms, each room will have transmitters and phasor cabinets.
As of late July, work on the ground system and elevated guy anchor points was underway.
“We are expecting to start stacking steel by the end of August. At that point it will be all hands on deck as we work on multiple trades. We are hopeful to be completed by the end of 2025.”
And what about you? Are you involved in an interesting engineering project that your fellow readers might wish to learn from?
Maybe it’s a big tower project like Salem’s, but it could also be a cloud initiative, an FM combiner installation on a dramatic mountaintop, a consolidation of studios into smaller facilities, a fresh approach to STL or something else. Tell me about it at radioworld@futurenet.com
Writer Randy J. Stine
Koehn is a voice for small-market radio
Michigan broadcaster Julie Koehn marks 40 years of service and success
When she was 10 years old, Julie Koehn’s career goal was to run a national labor organization. Her path didn’t run that way. Today the 61-year-old with smalltown radio roots plays an important role not only in Michigan broadcasting but in the national radio business. And she has the awards to prove it.
Koehn (pronounced Kane) leads Lenawee Broadcasting Co. and Southeast Michigan Media and serves on several state and national radio boards.
She has been president and CEO at Lenawee Broadcasting since 1990. Full-service WLEN(FM) in Adrian was founded by her father John in 1965. The station began
transmitting in HD Radio in 2015, and its HD-2 channel, which has a sports format, is relayed on an FM translator. Meanwhile, Koehn has owned Southeast Michigan Media since 2020, including country station WQTE(FM) and WABJ(AM).
Adrian is a city of about 21,000 people, about 60 minutes southwest of Detroit. The radio stations are housed in the same facility. In all, they employ approximately 20 full- and part-time staff.
Her
labor is in business
Koehn graduated from Michigan State University with two degrees unrelated to broadcasting. She never intended to follow in her father’s footsteps.
The author wrote about the threeminute Nielsen rule in the previous issue.
Above
The “Thank a Vet” campaign raises money to benefit local veterans.
Julie Koehn is at center, with Bill Sanderson, left, the commander of American Legion Post 97, and post member Larry Condon.
Julie Koehn
“My degrees are in labor relations and political science. I thought I’d be running the AFL-CIO someday. That was my original plan. I never figured I’d be in radio,” she says.
“But once I was bit by the radio bug I was all in.”
After a brief stint in Baltimore pursuing a job more aligned with her degrees, Koehn joined the family radio business in Adrian 1985 and took over its operation in 1990 after the passing of her father.
Koehn says broadcast radio faces many issues, but she is especially bothered by a misconception of the medium.
“We all know that that radio has a huge reach. But communicating that to clients and the advertising world is a very, very important issue, something that we’re all striving to do,” Koehn said.
“We know that radio is an effective medium, but with all of the noise of media in the world, digital and satellite and all of these things that are our competition, just telling radio’s story is really important.”
Headlines about radio often focus on how much debt some of the major groups carry or how radio in general is struggling. She says the industry needs to do a better job explaining its upside.
“There are a lot of positives out there. People are still buying and selling radio stations, and radio is still a very good business to be in.”
She describes herself as “wildly” optimistic.
“I think we have so many more opportunities we’ve never had. I had one radio station when I started. We’ve grown our group of stations to four,” Koehn says.
“We’re doing a lot of digital. We have a huge news product. We have thousands of people coming to our websites every day.” Lenawee TV is a newly launched online
“The radio product comes first for us. Understanding the power that radio brings to your digital is critical. ”
station that streams special programming including sports, community events and public meetings.
“There is so much opportunity out there as a media company, not just a standalone radio company. … Our goal is to extend our brand of providing free access with news and information and entertainment to the communities we serve.”
“Radio first”
Koehn says her group puts great faith in local news coverage to keep audiences engaged.
“News is so important. If we don’t have news, there’s no one to keep elected officials accountable. There’s no one to inform the public of crucial matters in their community,” she said.
“Let’s face it, on a national level, there are always lots of things happening, but when you come down to the local level, these are things that really impact people’s lives, and we need to be there to tell the story and to be able to provide people with information that helps them make informed, educated decisions.
“So while we do love to entertain people, we also know how big our responsibility is to keep our community informed about many aspects of life.”
She wants the stations to be available everywhere listeners want to hear them.
“Whether it’s on the air, whether it’s online, we want people to be able to consume us wherever they go.” And while digital platforms are important, she doesn’t want to lose sight of the radio component.
“We built a brand on the radio. Our brand has now transferred into our digital platform, but the radio product comes first for us. Understanding the power that radio brings to your digital is critical.”
Koehn values the opportunity to serve on the NAB Radio Board, where she works to represent broadcasters in small communities as chair of Small and Medium Market Radio Committee. Someone once called her the poster child for small-market radio.
“I wear that as a badge of honor. I think it’s really important for the small broadcasters to have a voice. People would be very surprised at how much impact smallmarket broadcasting, whether it’s radio or television, has on a national level.
“There’s lots of things happening in small markets. We’re very agile, and we try things maybe other people wouldn’t try, just because we can.”
Many broadcasters talk about the importance of localism, and Koehn agrees it’s the key to winning in smallmarket radio, especially for smaller companies trying to compete across multiple platforms of digital.
She notes that in her market, listeners can hear 56 radio signals, including those in Detroit and Toledo. “We have a tremendous amount of competition for ears.” This makes local content yet more important.
“It affects their kids, it affects their schools, it affects their county and city governments, and so, thereby really affecting their lives.”
As part of that, it’s important that the station staff be seen and involved.
“We do tons of community service — and that’s our job. We try to do whatever we can to make our community a better place to live, because that translates into success and a positive; a positive for everyone.”
For example, WLEN/WQTE’s annual Thank a Vet Day has raised half a million dollars for local veterans over the years. In 2024, the station raised about $55,000 in 12 hours as the air staff hit the streets to collect donations. The money is distributed via the Veterans Dire Need Fund managed by Housing Help of Lenawee.
“The impact of this event continues to grow each year, making a significant difference in the lives of those who have served our country.”
AI as assistant
When she began her career there were few women in leadership roles.
“I started in the business 40 years ago. Most of the mentors in experience and in my life were men for me, just because there weren’t women in those roles. Women and men lead very differently, but I feel I had a wellrounded opportunity to learn from different leaders.” Local broadcasters Dean Sorenson and Bud Walters were particularly important mentors.
Koehn spends time these days on finding strategic ways to improve the on-air product and better serve her advertising clients. She is tracking the evolution of artificial intelligence as a means to do both.
Her stations use AI for generating news story leads, rewriting content for broadcast and generating content for the web and social platforms. They also use AI for sales prospecting, generating leads and prompting ideas and text for ads and promotions.
“We have to be certain that we’re using it as a tool and not a replacement for something. It’s a great tool for information if you can verify by multiple sources. It’s a great tool for concepts and ideas that you can make your own. I don’t see AI replacing people in our company, but I see it assisting us to work smarter and be able to stretch our time over more things.”
She also tracks regulatory matters in Washington. Koehn approves of the push by the NAB and others to eliminate or ease radio market ownership sub-caps and allow further consolidation.
“I’ve always been one of those people who believes in what the market will bear. It will take care of things. Once we were able to buy the other stations in the market, we were able to provide more localism and more content. And we did that because we had the scale to
be able to do that. So we are now sharing resources among four radio stations, instead of among one or two.”
Since Koehn operates an AM, she is keenly aware of the AM for Every Vehicle Act that would require new cars to be equipped with AM radio. She predicts it will become law.
“The importance of AM radio for the Emergency Alert System and for redundancy across the country, if there ever were a catastrophic event, is critical. We’ve worked really hard to educate our representatives on the importance of AM remaining in vehicles. There’s been lots of momentum building in Congress.”
Radio Honors
Koehn, who serves on the NAB Radio Board, has been a finalist for “Legendary Radio Manager of the Year” in the NAB Marconi Awards. She received the Michigan Association of Broadcasters Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016 and has been listed by Radio Ink as one of the most influential women in radio multiple times.
Yet she deflects fuss. “It’s nice to be recognized, but I’m part of a much bigger team that makes us successful,” Koehn says.
Her stations have five NAB Crystal Radio Awards, the NAB Crystal Heritage Award, five NAB Education Foundation Service to America Awards, and four NAB Marconi Awards — two for AC Station of the Year and two for Small-Market Station of the Year, according to her bio. In addition, WLEN has been MAB Station of the Year for 16 of the last 18 years in the category for its market size.
Right Koehn’s stations have been lauded many times by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, and she is a recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award.
John Bisset
CPBE
The author is in his 34th year of writing Workbench. He handles western U.S. radio sales for the Telos Alliance and is a past recipient of the SBE’s Educator of the Year Award. Send your tips Workbench submissions are encouraged and qualify for SBE recertification credit. Email johnpbisset@ gmail.com
Try a clipper instead of a stripper
Also, how Pushover can help you keep in touch with your site
ames Potter, K3NSWI, is with Cutting Edge Engineering of Missouri. He owns numerous wire strippers, ranging from shoddy to premium.
JHe hates them all.
He says the pre-defined notches are either too tight, causing him to cut strands, or too loose, requiring multiple tries. And none is great for stripping the outer jackets of multi-pair audio cable or smalldiameter coax.
But one day James was clipping his dog’s nails, and it occurred to him to try the clippers on some wire. Voilà!
The blades are razor-sharp and the shape of the handle provides an assured grip. James has stripped everything from #22 telco wire to RG-59 coax with no issues. He said the clippers are particularly efficient on the solid wire found in Romex.
One brand is shown in the photo, but you will find endless options at pet stores and online, and for just a few bucks. Try it. You’ll like it!
Retrofit supply warning
Electronics has been one of Mark Peterson’s hobbies since childhood. After high school he earned his FCC First Class License, worked on television equipment in the army and had a long career with IBM as a programmer.
Now in retirement, he volunteers his time doing engineering work at WCTS(AM) in Plymouth, Minn.
Mark read Frank Hertel’s power supply retrofit suggestion in this column in June. He warns that he has come across some power bricks where the AC input ground — the green wire — is internally connected to the negative output wire.
If you use two of these (to get the “plus” and “negative” voltage supplies) and connect the positive lead of one to the negative lead of the other, you’ll end up shorting out one power brick. So get out that ohmmeter and test the supplies before proceeding.
A question for readers
A contract engineer writes in to ask: “I’m curious how other engineers feel about surge protectors, where they use them and what products they use?”
I think it goes without saying that most engineers believe in surge protectors. But is there a preference between MOV (metal-oxide varistor) or choke-type? And what brands do you prefer?
If you don’t have a suppressor, speak to your insurance carrier. It may pay for all or a portion of a surge suppressor. If you have one installed, they might reduce your premium, because you are taking steps to mitigate their risk. Just ask
“The blades are razor-sharp and the shape of the handle provides an assured grip.
Above Pet nail clippers can make excellent wire strippers. This Gonicc model is sold on Amazon in several sizes, all under $10.
them … and also email your thoughts on this question to johnpbisset@gmail.com.
Pushover
William Harrison, director of engineering for WETA(FM) in Washington, D.C., says transmitter site alerts obviously are important. But a while back, he started experiencing delays in receiving his.
His remote control would generate an alert via email, after which it was supposed to go through a series of filters and rules for forwarding via an email-to-text gateway — in this case, myphonenumber@verizon.com. But one day he received a text message roughly 10 hours after the remote control had generated the email. Ten hours won’t cut it for transmitter alerts.
It seems that carriers do not give priority to messages coming through an email-to-text gateway. In fact William says many carriers have disabled these services entirely because of too much spam.
What’s an engineer to do? Enter Pushover, a simple push notification solution for Android, iPhone, iPad and even desktop browsers.
Pushover assigns you a dedicated email address. Anything sent to that address arrives on your device as a push notification.
To use it for yourself or a small group, it’s a $4.99 one-time purchase on each platform (iPhone, Android or desktop) where you want to receive notifications. You can try it for free for a month by downloading the app.
For companies or organizations, a Pushover for Teams service is available for $5 per user per month; it comes with features like centralized management, priority message queuing and priority support.
Pushover has enabled William to keep all of his email filtering rules in place. He now gets his alerts in a much more timely manner than through text message alerting.
Learn more at https://pushover.net. The site also provides an API (Application Programming Interface), libraries and programming examples to integrate it into a product or workflow.
Kits are not dead
Dan Slentz found a fun website that sells simple circuits, parts and schematics for building widgets. Take a look at https://electronics-diy.com. Some of the kits include test equipment modules. One that caught his eye is a USB input/output development board consisting of a microcontroller that is compatible with Windows, Mac OS and Linux computers. It allows you to control 16 individual I/O pins. In addition to being used as a USB relay controller, the module can control LEDs or other widgets. It can be programmed to serve as a USB data logger, countdown timer with relay, even a temperature meter/logger.
Find it at https://electronics-diy.com/USB_IO_Board.php
Two years ago it dawned on broadcasters that artificial intelligence technologies could change our workflows drastically. Have they? Your latest free ebook digs into that question.
Right Pushover is a push notification service. One reader uses it to monitor transmitter alerts.
Writer
Mark Persons
CPBE, CBNT, AMD
The author wrote here recently about series and parallel circuits.
A visit to “Shine 800 AM”
Mark Persons drops in to see TWR’s facility on Bonaire
Atrip to the Caribbean island of Bonaire gave me a chance to visit PJB3, a Trans World Radio AM station transmitting Christianbased radio on 800 kHz.
I read about the Bonaire facility in a Radio World article seven years ago. The site is said to have the largest AM transmitter in the Western Hemisphere. Seeing this high-power station was worth the effort.
Bonaire is a Dutch-held desert island about 50 miles north of Venezuela and about 850 miles north of the equator. It is one of the “A B Cs,” along with Aruba and Curacao, formerly the Netherlands Antilles. Bonaire is 24 miles long and three to seven miles wide with a population of about 24,000.
TWR has been broadcasting to the world since 1952. Its Bonaire operation started in 1964 with a 500 kW tube-type
transmitter, which was very expensive to run. It was later downgraded to 100 kW to save money.
In 2018 the station turned on a Nautel NX-400 solid-state transmitter, which produces 440,000 watts of RF, seen on the next page with engineer Matt Folkert, N3FLW. That upgrade increased the population within its reach from 50 million to 100 million people.
With Modulation Dependent Carrier Level technology they were able to reduce the power cost. Total power includes necessary air conditioning to keep salt air out and the temperature down from the year-round day and night average of 85 degrees.
The four 478-foot towers are 140 degrees in electrical height at 800 kHz. That puts them in the 700-ohm range of self-impedance. As you know, impedance changes under directional antenna conditions. Kintronic Labs in Bluff City, Tenn., engineered the four-tower directional antenna system.
Above
The TWR Bonaire transmitter site.
Jim Moser, senior staff engineer at Kintronic Labs, told us that for the North and South pattern, the front two towers with respect to beam direction are driven and the rear towers are reactively terminated to act as reflectors.
When the operation is switched, the pair of towers that were operating as reflectors are now in the front and driven, and the previously driven towers are reactively terminated.
The patterns are similar, each with theoretical gains of over 13 dBi, but with each using its own power dividing networks for independent control.
The third pattern, covering portions of the Caribbean, consists of one driven tower with the other three towers reactively terminated to provide some beam shaping with approximately a 9.5 dBi maximum gain. The three patterns are shown on page 16.
Isolation coils at the base of each tower provide access across the base insulators for the sampling system and tower lighting as well as providing a static drain path. The isolation coils are tapped in order to be incorporated as part of the matching and terminating networks and provide additional control of the high tower drive impedances.
Moser went on to say that he was not aware of any domestic systems using parasitic towers to shape the pattern, but there are multiple systems internationally that use the technique. It is more common in highpower systems operating with 100 kW and above.
The closest related practice domestically is using reactive terminations to detune towers in an array such that the tower has a near zero field contribution to the desired pattern.
Nightly schedule
Back in the day, with the half-megawatt tube transmitter and production staff on site, it took as many as 100 people to run PJB3. Today only one engineer is needed, and just a few production staff. Recorded audio from
Top
Above
reporters in countries being served is sent via FTP to Bonaire.
The work is supported by paid local staff as well as worldwide missionaries who donate their time to support the mission of TWR. Some engineers pay their own way to help. The power company knows PJB3’s broadcast hours and is prepared for the load. The utility gets a call from the station if the transmitter is scheduled to be run at other hours.
Fig. 1: The original 500 kW Continental transmitter.
Fig. 2: Matt Folkert with the Nautel NX400 transmitter.
The facility is supported by a bank of five diesel generators that can make 14 megawatts total. Solar and wind turbines with batteries are a part of the equation for consistent power day and night. Not all islands are so blessed.
TWR Bonaire is silent during the day but comes alive at night. From 7:30 to 8 p.m., they broadcast in English to the Caribbean islands, then the pattern is switched to the northwest from 8 p.m. to midnight, when Spanish programs are sent to Cuba away via skywave bouncing off the ionosphere. Yes, they put a reliable signal into Cuba some 900 miles away.
The antenna is on the southeast pattern from 4:30 to 6 a.m. when Portuguese is beamed as far as 1,200 miles into Latin America, again by ionospheric reflection. Then from 6 to 7:30 a.m. the station is nondirectional with Spanish programs to the Caribbean Colombia and Venezuela. Listeners know when to tune in.
In case of bad weather or emergency, the Netherlands government advises citizens from Saba to Aruba to tune to 800 kHz. This powerhouse station is there to provide accurate information.
Speaking of weather, the island is surrounded by the salty Caribbean Sea. That means tower painting is required frequently.
Above Fig. 3: Three coverage patterns.
Top right Fig. 4: Station Manager Jason Helmholdt at the controls of an Axia iQ console, where programming is mixed for airing.
Right
5: Lionel Cicilia shows off climbing gear.
In the case of the TWR towers, each tower gets serious maintenance, with rusty parts replaced, then scraping and painting every four years. That job requires 2,500 labor hours because it takes three climbers on a tower and three people on the ground. This happens when the station is off the air during the day. How convenient!
Fig.
Climber Lionel Cicilia wasn’t on a tower the day I visited, but he showed his climbing gear (Fig. 5). He’s shown with a paint scraper in his left hand and a paint brush in the right.
There is also an electronics shop for repairing equipment on site. In Fig. 6 Matt Folkert tackles a Belar AMM-2A Modulation Monitor that needs attention.
Above TWR at sunset by Mart Heij.
Below Fig. 6: Matt Folkert at the repair bench.
Shipping equipment for repair is no easy task when items need to go through customs. Repairs are better done on site.
Matt Folkert’s history in broadcast began in 1980 with HCJB radio’s shortwave ministry in Quito, Ecuador. Matt was hired by the Voice of America and participated in its modernization effort until 1983; he then was with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as a project engineer until 1996. Matt later worked as a technical consultant in the U.S. radio industry until 2019. After retirement, he volunteered with Reach Beyond, Far East Broadcasting Company and TWR at locations around the world.
TWR is an evangelical ministry using radio to reach people worldwide. You can learn more about the organization at twr.org and about the Bonaire operation at twrbonaire.org.
Mark Persons, WØMH, is an SBE Life Member, CPBE, CBNT, AMD. He is retired after more than 60 years in radio broadcast engineering, including 44 years in business. He and his wife Paula are inductees of the Minnesota Broadcasters Hall of Fame. They stay active by mentoring five radio broadcast engineers. Their website is www. mwpersons.com
Writer Nick Langan
From Gainesville to gain control: Reaves finds his Zen
Audio veteran teams up with Aqua to build a modern AGC
When David Reaves announced a partnership with Aqua Broadcast earlier this year, it moved the needle — pardon the pun — for people who know sound in the industry.
You may know Reaves from his work as an engineer, including at New York City top 40 station 100.3 WHTZ(FM), “Z-100,” from 1988–1996. He later spent time at NBC News.
Reaves has continued to research and support efforts to develop quality sounding audio on radio. He cofounded TransLanTech Sound, where
he came up with the Ariane processor line, named after his wife.
Now, in a venture called David Reaves Audio, he’s taking a “Zen” approach to designing high-performance audio level control products, which Aqua Broadcast will manufacture. Industry veteran Rich Redmond is partnering in the endeavor.
More than an afterthought
At the spring NAB Show, Reaves showcased the Zen 10 audio level controller, one of a new series of “Zen Level” controllers. The idea of AGC being a core selling point in a 2025 product might seem surprising — but not to Reaves.
Above
David Reaves poses with the Zen 10 at the Aqua Broadcast booth at the 2025 NAB Show.
The author wrote here recently about youthful hobbyists embracing long-distance FM listening.
The concept traces to his early fascination with the CBS Audimax processor.
“There’s an AGC of some sort in pretty much every broadcast audio processor system,” he told us. “There is no broadcast processing without an effective AGC.”
Automatic level control, Reaves said, also has a multitude of uses in broadcast production, ranging from music preparation to adding polish to commercials and promos.
“Sometimes audibility is desirable, and, for example, being able to selectively add a controlled amount of ‘punch’ can make a produced program element stand out,” he said.
Reaves believes that, particularly in lower-end AM and FM broadcast audio processors, AGC design is often an afterthought.
“In my opinion, if its action consistently draws attention to itself, it’s a poor design,” he said.
That’s where his thought process has been on the Zen 10: Its design aims to offer users precise level control while minimizing the audibility of its adjustments.
There are uses for AGC beyond traditional radio needs, Reaves said. They might include podcasts, videos and streaming programs, as well as public address applications in houses of worship and music venues.
“Loudness control is useful — even necessary — for creating a comfortable, consistent listening level,” he said.
When we spoke, the company was hoping to begin production shipments after the IBC Show. Also in development is the Z-3, a reduced-feature, three-band halfrack model, and the “Zaudimax,” a single-band, low-cost processor designed to look and function like a 1965 CBS Audimax III.
“That one is mainly for fun!” Reaves said. But the whole process clearly is a joy for him.
A certain charm
Reaves’ fascination with AGC began in his youth. He grew up in Gainesville, Fla., where in the late 1960s three top 40 AM stations competed for listeners. Despite having only 1 kW of power as a graveyarder, 1230 WGGG(AM) stood out for its consistent sound.
“The records simply didn’t fade, which kind of mystified me,” Reaves recalls.
The station would come to outperform the other 5 kW stations in the Gainesville Pulse ratings at the time. WGGG ultimately forced those competitors to change formats; one went country, the other middle-of-the-road/adult contemporary.
In 1972 Reaves as a high-schooler got a job at the station, playing tapes on Sunday mornings and announcing station IDs — but was not allowed to say his name.
Above Reaves in his WGVL days, late 1970s.
“It was me and two other engineer wanna-be kids, Greg Strickland and Terry Hesters, taking turns playing religious tapes, public service shows and Casey Kasem’s ‘American Top 40’ on weekends.”
That’s how he learned that the “magical” level control of WGGG was due to its use of a CBS Laboratories Audimax
“There is no broadcast processing without an effective AGC. ”
AGC. Over time he found that this was a common trait among stations with higher ratings: In almost every case they were using an Audimax.
He said that, from today’s perspective, it’s far from a perfect device, but he felt that there was a certain charm to how the Audimax treated audio levels.
CBS’ patented method is known as the “gain platform,” a hysteresis release system that forces the system’s gain to remain unchanged over periods whenever the incoming signal remains within the “window” of a certain range of variation. In the original Audimax, this window was 7 dB.
Reaves said that during these periods, the audio coming out would be identical to the incoming signal, including all the small variations that give it its natural feel and flavor. It is a control method that left a big impression on him.
After WGGG and graduation, David’s first full-time on-air role was at a station in Eden, N.C. Finally he could say his name on the air. He would DJ at several other Tar Heel state stations while growing an affinity for engineering.
In 1975, he returned to Gainesville to attend classes at Santa Fe Community College and landed a role as a host for progressive rocker WGVL(FM). By this time, in the college town home to the University of Florida, this station, which had come on in 1970, felt like it was at the center of it all. “It was a right place, right time kind of situation,” he said.
Over three years, under the tutelage of veteran album rock programmer Lee Arnold, Reaves eventually become program director while also learning what went into creating a superiorsounding FM station. He credits Greg Strickland, who’d become the station’s chief engineer, as an influence.
Above
“Before CDs, a finely tuned FM station could be the cleanest, most accurate-sounding audio source available to most consumers,” Reaves said. “WGVL was very pure, thanks to Greg’s attention to detail.”
Greg Strickland would go on to be a chief at stations in Miami, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, where his
A postcard shows WGGG’s Art Deco building, “probably around the time they came on the air in 1948,” Reaves said.
Spanish Broadcasting station led the ratings. Reaves would take the same role at top 40 powerhouse Z-100.
“We both did all right,” he allowed.
The Zen mindset
At WHTZ, Reaves followed the lead of former chief and later consultant Frank Foti. At least initally, he only set out to tweak the processing that Foti and Jim Somich had set up.
But the New York market was competitive and dynamic. Engineer Paul Sanchez at WPLJ(FM) had cranked up its processing with its aggressive sound.
WHTZ’s equipment chain, while very high-quality, was relatively simple, Reaves said. But Broadcasters’ General Store gave Reaves access to a new “Tailor” 10-band level controller, created by Jim Trapani. The Tailor was basically an octave-band graphic EQ but with RMS level control built into each band.
“It was powerful. Maybe even a bit too powerful,” Reaves said.
As an analog product, it lent itself to modifications.
Reaves wondered if he could apply the Audimax-style gated/platform release control to the 10 bands of the Tailor.
This would mean setting up a “dead-band” dynamic window for each band, so the device would let processed audio “breathe.” That experience was a precursor to the Zen Level design philosophy: “Stay out of the way of audio
“The experience was a precursor to the Zen Level design philosophy: ‘Stay out of the way of audio that is already adequately processed.’
”that is already adequately processed,” he said.
“It taught me a lot.”
Living today in Germany, Reaves has spent time studying and experimenting with the ideas presented in the Audimax patents and figuring out how to best implement them in a DSP application.
The “Zen” name, Reaves said, comes from the patented CBS platform gain technique. “It does something by doing nothing,” he said.
The research has resulted in the David Reaves Audio “Zen Level” line of AGCs, led by the Zen 10. Reaves said it has 10 separate AGCs, arranged in five frequency bands of two-channel stereo control.
Having 10 independent, identical controllers opens up a world of
possibilities, he said. The number of bands used is customizable; it can be reduced to as few as one. “For example, I would never use five bands for classical music,” Reaves said.
While there’s a nod to craftsmanship of the past, Reaves lauds the technology the Zen takes advantage of.
Aqua has brought it a flexible, multi-purpose chassis. It features two Raspberry Pi MPUs, in addition to its DSP. Reaves said his venture has contracted to use Dante AES-67 for digitally networked stereo AoIP, in addition to more traditional line-level balanced analog I/O on XLR connectors and normal AES-3 digital I/O.
The Zen 10’s input is relay-connected to output in a failsafe configuration, so that in the event of power loss, there will be no loss of audio.
There is an on-board declipper, through the “Perfect Declipper” algorithm designed by Hans van Zutphen, which can be engaged to automatically remove clipping artifacts from poorly mastered material.
There’s a tunable high-pass filter available, to remove DC and low-frequency noise while allowing a bit of “oomph” boost at the very bottom of the lowest octave. In addition to linked stereo control — where the control linkage between a band’s two channels can be set tight or loose according to user settings, Reaves said — any or all of the bands can alternatively be set up as a stereo matrix, which allows L+R and L–R to be controlled separately.
Each band can be set up with its own set of controls: release timing, release gating threshold, “Zen platform” width and punch. The entire system can be set to operate with reference to the EBU’s BS.1770 loudness EQ contour.
“I don’t know of any other product that can do these things,” Reaves said.
For a user who finds the feature set overwhelming, the Zen 10 will come with presets. Settings can be controlled from the front panel, which has a large, high-resolution color LCD display, while full remote control is available via Ethernet using any modern browser.
After tinkering, users can save their own presets and export them for use on other Zen 10s.
The suggested price for a Zen 10 is $2,200 USD. Aqua Broadcast will make it available through their normal distribution outlets.
Reaves said that the Zen 10 isn’t meant to drive transmitter audio directly. It would be suitable for a station looking to extend the life of a less-capable processor, for example.
“There are so many untapped capabilities we’re eager to implement,” Reaves said. Those include silent-sense with automatic email notification and automatic input switching on loss of input signal, and MP3 and AAC coded outputs.
“We will be very sensitive to user feedback.”
For Reaves, it’s the fulfillment of a dream that began as a curious teen, late-night listening in Gainesville.
What’s up with the new foreign sponsorship rules
Stations must comply with verification requirements starting in December
Writer
Gregg P. Skall Telecommunications
On June 10, 2025, one year to the day following the FCC’s 2024 Second Report and Order modifying the sponsorship identification requirements for foreign government-provided programming, the FCC announced that the Office of Management and Budget had approved the rule modifications but deferred compliance for six months, until Dec. 8, 2025.
Radio and television broadcasters now have a “duty of inquiry” to obtain the information needed to determine whether programming is sponsored, paid for or furnished by a foreign governmental entity. Once so determined, the station must make a public disclosure, at the time of broadcast, identifying the foreign source of foreign government-provided programming.
The notice also clarifies that only new leases and renewals of existing leases entered into on or after Dec. 8, 2025 must comply with the rule modifications.
(Note that in many places the FCC denotes the broadcast licensee as the “Lessor” and the program provider as the “Lessee” despite decades of advice to avoid using those terms as a possible indicator of a violation of the rule that an FCC license is not a property interest.)
How to verify
There are two options to meet the verification requirement.
1. Certification Option: This is a written certification agreement signed by the lessee
Broadcast Law
(i.e. the programmer) and the lessor (i.e. the licensee).
The parties can write their own certification language or use the template language provided in Appendices C and D of the Second Report and Order, which are reproduced on these pages and which you can find on page 47 of the order at https://tinyurl.com/rw-skall-4.
All agreements must confirm that the broadcaster:
• Informed the lessee of the foreign sponsorship disclosure requirement;
• Asked the lessee whether it falls into any of the categories that would qualify it as a “foreign governmental entity”;
• Asked the lessee whether it knows if any individual/entity further back in the chain of producing and/or distributing the programming to be aired qualifies as a foreign governmental entity and has provided some type of inducement to air the programming;
• Sought a written certification in response from the lessee; and
• Obtained the necessary information for a disclosure if one is required.
2. Screenshot Option: The second option is for the lessee (programmer) to provide screenshots of the search results for their own name from two federal government databases: (a) the Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) database (https://efile.fara.gov/ords/fara/ f?p=1235:10) and the FCC’s U.S.-based foreign media outlet report (www.fcc.gov/united-statesbased-foreign-media-outlets). If the search for the name does not provide any results in both databases, no further search is needed.
The verification requirement applies to all lease agreements. That is: “any agreement, written or not, where a licensee grants to another party the right to program on its station in exchange for some form of consideration.”
Thus, the due diligence requirements apply regardless of the terms or duration of the agreement, and regardless of whether the parties view the agreement as a time brokerage agreement, a local marketing agreement or something else.
The verification requirement cannot be avoided through informal, short-term and/or week-to-week type arrangements. For short-term leases, where the same licensee and lessee enter into recurring leases for the same programming over a one-year period, the licensee need only exercise the due diligence required by the rules once per year. These rules apply to all programming, regardless of length. This includes short-form advertising, as well as issue advertisements, paid public service announcements, religious programming and locally produced and/or distributed programming. It also applies to programming by section 325(c) permit holders — i.e., an entity that produces programming in the
United States for broadcast by a non-U.S. licensed, foreign country station to be received in the United States.
Rule exemptions
• General Sponsor ID Exemption: These rules do not apply to commercial advertising only if that programming would not otherwise be subject to general sponsorship disclosure rules (i.e. has the sponsor’s name been identified in the advertisement in a manner that clearly shows that they are the sponsor, per section 73.1212(f)).
• Readily Identifiable Ads: This exception to the foreign sponsor identification requirement applies in the same
way as in the general sponsor identification exception. For an advertisement to fall under the commercial exemption provisions of 73.1212(f), it must include the sponsor’s corporate or trade name (or the name of the sponsor’s product) when it is clear that the mention of the name of the product constitutes a sponsorship identification.
• NCE Station: The rules also do not apply to noncommercial and educational broadcast stations since the commission already prohibits NCEs from receiving compensation in exchange for broadcasting programs.
• Political Candidates: Political candidate advertisements are also exempt when bought on behalf of legally
“Radio and television broadcasters now have a ‘duty of inquiry’ to obtain the information needed to determine whether programming is sponsored, paid for or furnished by a foreign governmental entity.
Broadcast Law
qualified candidates or their authorized committees pursuant to Section 315 of the Act. However, issue advertisements and paid PSAs will be subject to the foreign sponsorship identification rules.
• Existing Program Agreements: Because leases already in effect at the time of the compliance date will be grandfathered in, compliance is only required from new and renewed leases.
Conclusion
The primary change accomplished by the rule revision is to remove the burden on broadcasters to themselves reach
out beyond the FCC’s data to other government sources to confirm the identity of their advertisers and programmers. In its place, the commission has imposed the two options described above.
It should be noted that the NAB continues to oppose this rule as placing an unlawful, unconstitutional and unwarranted burden on already overly burdened broadcasters.
This column is provided for general information purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal advice pertaining to any specific factual situation. Legal decisions should be made only after proper consultation with a legal professional of your choosing.
What threats, exactly?
Mr. Miller, which unfair “previous administration” are you referring to?
Sen. Jessie Helms, even before the Bush administrations, orchestrated relentless personal attacks in concert with well-funded and organized religious groups, pressuring the FCC and Congress to eliminate support and licensing of PBS and NPR, among other arts. Their vitriol is a matter of public record, should Mr. Miller care to look.
For decades, organized religious leaders justified their attacks based on perceived “threats to Christianity.”
Trump Administration Number 1 openly and aggressively pursued internet media giants, claiming bias against conservatives. Congress held “investigative hearings” resulting in statusquo: “hands off” private internet enterprise. Meanwhile congressional conservatives threatened CPB, PBS and NPR over alleged political bias.
He asserts that “religious broadcasters have faced hurdles within digital platforms.” Does that include dominant global satellite-based religious networks and enterprises such as the Christian Broadcasting Network?
For decades, free over-the-air sponsored religious content has been readily available via secular and religious broadcasters in radio and television formats. Yet Mr. Miller alleges injury resulting from failed access to unregulated paid subscriber-based, forprofit private enterprise platforms such as Netflix and YouTube.
Although FCC “must carry” rules arose to protect OTA television, is he suggesting similar enforcement on digital broadband platforms supporting religious content, while the FCC simultaneously trashes NPR and PBS? Regulate free speech with more “must-carry”? At what tangible or intangible costs to carriers? To what end?
Perhaps Mr. Miller’s is unaware of modern-day consumer demand for “religious product.” Consumers cannot be force-fed material originating from the pulpit. But his logic suggests that Fox should be forced to carry op-eds from the Democratic National Committee.
Mr. Miller’s assertions regarding limited free speech are made during Brendan Carr’s blatant FCC political intimidation investigation of the decades-old wellestablished sponsorship practices of NPR and PBS and of their content. This offensive has been concurrent with the “clawback” of congressionally approved CPB funds and the attempted complete elimination of future funding.
Can Mr. Miller identify specific examples of denied religious “free speech” via regulated broadcasters sufficient to withstand litigation, yield damage awards or benefit from injunctive relief?
Above Readers responded to this commentary by Troy A. Miller, president/CEO of the National Religious Broadcasters Association, in our May 7 issue.
“This is an unsettling misunderstanding of the First Amendment and the role of government, particularly for someone who leads a national association of broadcasters. ”
Christopher Peeters, P.E. Registered Professional Engineer IT & RF Engineering Consultant
NRB wants special treatment
Troy Miller doesn’t want fair access. He wants special treatment, despite his protestations to the contrary. He wants the FCC, which regulates broadcasting airwaves, to extend its governmental tentacles into the operation of private businesses like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, et al.
This is an unsettling misunderstanding of the First Amendment and the role of government, particularly for someone who leads a national association of broadcasters.
Of course, our current political situation exactly represents that same sort of religious-guided government intrusion into private business.
PS: The recent article on the Gates Radio belt spot machine was fabulous.
Kevin Crothers Charleston, S.C.
Above
The topic is copper. Shown: a roll of sheet copper.
My 2 cents about copper
I read with interest a “Readers’ Forum” letter regarding copper theft. I find it interesting that this problem still exists. I experienced an incident some 50 years ago, though with a twist.
It started with a call from a metropolitan radio station asking if I could render assistance with a problem they were having. This AM station on the East Coast was operating with an original self-supporting tower atop a 10-story office building on the city square.
Upon arriving I was shown the 1 kW AM transmitter in the basement. The chief engineer explained that the transmitter seemed to be operating properly but that some of the PA stage readings were unusual.
I looked over the transmitter logs and could tell things were not right. No amount of tuning would rectify the situation. I asked the usual questions: How long has this been going on? Any lightning strikes or burnt smells, anything out of the ordinary? Nothing. The transmitter looked normal inside, no visible damage.
It placed us on the flat rooftop about 50 feet from the base of the self-supporting and the ATU in the middle of the roof. As I started to walk to the ATU, I realized there were no radial ground wires, though I could make out where they’d been installed from disruptions in the gravel roof coating.
Well you get the picture: Someone had stolen all the copper ground radials from the roof of this building.
There was absolutely no way to get onto the roof other than the elevator route. No adjacent buildings, no fire escapes, no ladders on the outside walls. Yet the only remnant of the grounding system was the 6-inch copper strap running down one exterior wall to the ground.
How did they steal all that copper? Toss it off the side of a 10-story building? They certainly didn’t bring it down the elevator shaft.
Well the police were notified and new copper was ordered; but the culprits were never identified or brought to justice. It’s just another case of “you just can’t make this stuff up.”
Walter Konetsco
Don’t drop NPR, but fix it
Regarding the story “Trump Orders CPB to Stop Funding NPR and PBS” on radioworld.com:
I support PBS, NPR and the mission of public media. Their news, storytelling and cultural programming are important to millions of Americans. But at the same time I believe NPR and PBS need serious reform, starting with how they manage their budget.
Too much money is spent on C-suite executives and an inflated payroll. NPR should not be a top-heavy organization running like a bloated bureaucracy. Public media should be lean, efficient and focused on serving the public, not enriching executives.
How to submit Radio World welcomes comment on all relevant topics. Email radioworld@ futurenet.com with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject field.
I suggested we go to the roof to investigate a possible failure in the antenna tuning unit. I met with some resistance and was told that it was difficult to get there.
Well that’s where the fun began. We got into an old cage elevator and rode it to the top of the elevator shaft. Once at the top, we had to open a trap door in the elevator roof and climb on top of the elevator, then open another overhead door to climb into the elevator control room.
There we were surrounded on all sides by clacking relays as the building elevator systems went about their business, all in total darkness. My guide had neglected to suggest a flashlight.
We finally found a switch to turn on the single overhead light bulb, and found the outside door.
I believe C-level salaries should be tied to the average employee wage — maybe a reasonable percentage above it but not multiple times higher. That would show real leadership and accountability.
NPR should operate more like regular radio and TV stations that control costs and generate revenue through sponsorships. Becoming more self-sufficient would reduce the need for federal support and ultimately make NPR more resilient and responsive to its audience.
This should not be about tearing down NPR or PBS. It should be about strengthening them for the long haul.
